John William's interest in astronomy began while spending an autumn night with his grandmother. Upon looking out the window, he noticed a blurry spot in the sky. He studied some books at the library and decided, correctly, that it was the Great Nebula in Orion. He was hooked. As a pre-teen and teenager, John spent countless winter nights shivering in his families backyard in Kansas exploring the night sky with a small telescope. Calculus gave him a reality-check in college, but he switched gears to becoming a reporter of science, sharing knowledge through writing (another love). John has published articles in technical journals. He also served as a contributing editor reporting on the Galileo mission, Voyager's last light, and the discovery of lightning at Venus with Pioneer Venus. He drools over amazing images of Earth and I still use the same telescope to explore the dark skies with his two children in the mountains near Golden, Colorado.